Troubleshooting

Diagnose and fix common issues with the GetWebP WordPress plugin — conversion failures, delivery problems, hosting compatibility, and more.

This page covers the most common issues and how to resolve them. If your issue is not listed here, check the FAQ or contact support.

Table of Contents #

Symptom: Batch conversion starts but no images are processed, or the status column shows no checkmarks.

Checklist:

PHP version — Confirm PHP 7.4+ is active: wp eval 'echo PHP_VERSION;'
Memory limit — GetWebP needs at least 64 MB. Check Tools → Site Health → Info → Server for the current memory limit.
File permissions — The wp-content/uploads directory must be writable by the web server.
Quota — Check GetWebP → Dashboard to confirm you have remaining quota.
Failed images log — Look for failed images in the batch progress panel. Hover over the error icon to see the specific reason.

Symptom: The progress bar stops advancing and the queue appears stuck.

Possible causes:

WP-Cron blocked — The background queue relies on WP-Cron. See WP-Cron Not Running below.
PHP timeout — On shared hosts, PHP execution time may be limited. Go to GetWebP → Settings → Advanced and reduce the Batch chunk size from 20 to 5.
Memory exhausted — A very large image may be consuming all available PHP memory. The image is logged as failed and the queue moves on automatically after 60 seconds.

Recovery: Click Resume in the GetWebP dashboard. The queue picks up from where it left off.

Symptom: Batch shows all images converted, but DevTools shows JPEG/PNG responses.

Checklist:

Frontend delivery enabled? — Go to GetWebP → Settings → Delivery and confirm it's On.
Caching plugin conflict — Your caching plugin may be serving stale HTML with old image URLs. Clear all caches after enabling delivery.
Server Rewrite vs PHP delivery — If Server Rewrite is enabled but .htaccess rules are not being applied, switch to PHP delivery temporarily to confirm conversion is working.
CDN caching — If you use a CDN (Cloudflare, BunnyCDN), purge the CDN cache after the first batch conversion.
Browser cache — Test in a private/incognito window to rule out browser caching.

Symptom: Some images appear broken (404) after enabling WebP delivery.

Cause: The .webp sibling file does not exist for that image, but the URL was rewritten anyway.

Fix:

Go to GetWebP → Dashboard and check for failed conversions.
Re-run batch conversion — failed images are retried.
If the image is in a custom upload directory (not under wp-content/uploads), go to Settings → Advanced and add the directory to the custom paths list.

Symptom: PHP fatal error — "Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted."

Fix:

Add to your wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );

Or in your .htaccess:

php_value memory_limit 256M

On shared hosting, you may need to contact your host to increase the PHP memory limit.

Symptom: Auto-upload conversions are delayed or the batch queue does not advance without the admin page open.

WP-Cron is triggered by site traffic. On low-traffic sites, cron jobs may not fire for minutes or hours.

Fix — Use a real cron job:

Add to your server's crontab:

*/5 * * * * php /path/to/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=getwebp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1

Or using WP-CLI:

*/5 * * * * cd /path/to/wordpress && wp cron event run --due-now >/dev/null 2>&1

If you suspect a plugin conflict:

Deactivate all plugins except GetWebP.
Test delivery — if it works, reactivate plugins one at a time.
Common conflicts:
- Page builders (Elementor, Divi) — may bypass the_content filter. Enable Output buffer delivery.
- Lazy load plugins — may rename src to data-src. Enable Output buffer delivery.
- Security plugins (Wordfence, iThemes) — may block file writes to wp-content/uploads. Check your security plugin's file-change detection settings.